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The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, today launched an outlet ‘Jeevan Dhara/Jan Aushadhi', at the Osmania General Hospital, coinciding with the World Health Day-2011.
The objective of the outlet is to make available quality medicines at affordable prices for all. The Chief Minister advised the Medical and Health Department to take utmost care in proper maintenance of medicines procurement, storage, distribution, access and use to serve the poor and the disadvantaged in a better way.
Mr Reddy felt that the Central Government may be requested to bring an enactment for compulsory sales of both generic and branded medicines in the medical stores all over the country.
Senior officials from the Medical and Health Department and Managing Director, A.P.Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (APMSIDC), who were present, informed the Chief Minister that the concept of Jeevan Dhara is proposed to be launched in the entire State over a period of one year by establishing a series of such stores.
The total amount required for construction of 23 medicine stores in the State would be Rs 103.54 crore, the officials stated. Interestingly, one of the stores set up at the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, last year encountered problems.
At present 333 generic medicines are made available to common man at a lesser price of 40-90 per cent compared to branded medicines. They also stated that under this Jeevan Dhara scheme, less priced quality unbranded generic medicines will be made available through the stores which inherently are less priced but are of same quality as branded medicines.
The Officials of the APMSIDC explained to Chief Minister about “Ashwini” – the supply, installation and maintenance of equipment required for RFID-based tracking of medicines in Central Warehouses of the Corporation along with CCTV surveillance system implementation, monitoring and the activity in the premises and Medicine & Equipment Management Information System.
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